If there’s something in your past which doesn’t reflect well on you it’s far better to admit it publicly before you get in to parliament, especially if it makes you look like a hypocrite.
Using the birth certificate of a dead child to obtain a false passport is a despicable act. Even if it happened years ago and the person who did it was discharged without conviction, it’s the sort of thing people ought to know before he becomes an MP.
According to the court file, the judge told him: “There is no public interest in what you did 20 years ago.”
The judge also said Mr Garrett had led a “blameless life”, and reporting his crime would have consequences disproportionate to the crime that he committed.
For someone who wasn’t in the public eye that may be true. But according to the report the trial was in 2005, the year in which Garrett entered parliament, three years later Garrett entered parliament.
Politicians don’t have to have had blameless past. But any who don’t confess any misdeeds to the public early are inviting trouble when, as is almost inevitable in a country where most people know someone who knows someone who knows you, it eventually comes out.
P.S.
If your name’s been suppressed can you make it public?
Garrett did not enter parliament until 2008.
Thanks Linda, I’ll correct that.
“Using the birth certificate of a dead child to obtain a false passport is a despicable act.”
It is. What sort of Party leader would welcome aboard a person responsible for such an act? And who, in their right mind would award them a role deciding upon the Law and Order legislation for New Zealanders?
And what Prime Minister would give his seal of approval to all this?
Despicable all three.
Robert, just how do you stretch the known facts to lead you to accuse John Key in “giving his seal of approval” to Garrett’s offense adjudicated by the Judge to have been at a level of offending that warranted a discharge without conviction.
BTW how does Garrett’s rubbish stack up against the $800k illegal spend by Labour,The Glen affair, the Field affair, the Peters $158k rort and all the other rubbish perpetrated and / or given a seal of approval by the Clark government without a squeak of disapproval by any of the parties to Confidence and supply that kept them in power.
What Garrett did was at the high end of abominable, but your faux outrage is, although entirely predictable, rather strident.
Members of most parties in the MMP environment will have people on the party list who will have undisclosed “skeletons in cupboards” that will be undetected at list creation time and come to light later. The old FFP system had an inbuilt screening system where a candidate had to face scrutiny by a much more concentrated electorate and not just be a faceless name that morphs more or less anonymously into the public eye.
I am far more interested in the machinations that led to this coming to the public notice with a suppression order in place and how the law will treat those such as Espinier G. et el who have done a WOBH.
I am no fan of Garrett and I suggest his actions were distasteful, but really, why the clamour in the MSM now? If this is major news we do indeed live in a tiny and sad backwater!
The matter was dealt with over two decades ago. There are contemporary matters deserving of immediate attention.
Gravedodger – though Key is trying to distance himself from the smelly pile of nastiness, he does have Garrett as part of his Government and does have Garrett in an important role and he has given his Royal Seal of Approval to Garrett’s changes to our Law and Order system and he has been entirely supportive of the plolitical decisions made by this enormously distasteful man, Garrett. Key has been backing a rotten player and Garrett is not the first that Key has smilingly supported only later to dump on when the voters found out obout hidden decadence, rot, decay, nastiness.
OK?
Cadwallader – you suggest his actions were distasteful ?
How generous of you toward Mr Garrett. Perhaps you are right in giving him the benefit of the doubt. There have been no other stains on his character revealed, have there?
Hang on …
ACT is getting the treatment a sick Party needs.
Cauterizing.
Only there will be nothing at all left soon.
Cadwallader – no, the matter was dealt with five years ago. And it would have been nice if the guy who has spent his three years in Parliament berating the judiciary for soft sentencing had actually mentioned that he got the very same “slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket” that he fulminates against for others.
And nice to see that ACT really knows where the blame lies in all this and gets rid of the press secretary…
If your name’s been suppressed can you make it public?
Apparently not!
As a parent, I find it abhorrent. And as a citizen, I think it outrageous that a politician has concealed a dishonesty charge from the public. A passport application requires a sworn oath in front of a JP, solicitor etc. It is dishonesty.
I am amazed that Rodney Hide was aware of the conviction and did not require him to tell the public at least when he stood for parliament and (at the very latest) when giving him the ACT law and order portfolio. Very bad judgement.
The whole incident destroys Garrett’s credibility.
As for why he did it and all the mitigating reasons why he deserved to not be convicted, how hypocritical. The whole point of the three strikes policy (and ‘sensible sentencing’) is that it ignores the circumstances and dictates an outcome. He wants the public to excuse his ‘prank’ because he was young and foolish but has argued vociferously for the very opposite for everyone else.
Still, I’ve seen no evidence in the media that John Key knew about the matter until the rest of us found about it too. Further, Garrett is not a Minister or assoc Minister (is he?). WHat exactly do you propose Key do – remove an MP, eject him from ACT? – he doesnt have those powers.
In answer to your question Ele, even if Garrett made a public statement and waived any claim to confidentiality, the media would still be in breach of the suppression order if they reprinted it (except that they are now protected by parliamentry privillege). It is the Court’s order (not Garrett’s), so only the Court can quash the order and allow publication. Until then, the media can only repeat what he has stated in Parliament and can not report any other facts regarding the case. Nevertheless if he had wanted to he could have applied long ago to have the Court lift the suppression order, he could have disclosed in Parliament, and he could have had a fellow ACT mp disclose in Parliament before his election.